So, I sat down today with a simple task: continue testing out these new Linux distros and install a text editor for quick tweaks. But as I sat down to pick one, I was reminded just how big and cool the world of text editors is. Before I knew it, I was researching their histories,… continue reading.
Yeah, Nedit “died off”; fortunately Xnedit was created to revive and update Nedit into the current Xnedit, which has been nicely updated several times; currently 1.6.1 as of January 5, 2025.
Very interesting to see Sublime Text so near the bottom, but maybe the order is not an opinion. Even more interesting to discover Lapce and Zed … going to try those out now. Sublime Text is great but leaves certain things to be desired.
VSCodium is lacking alongside Visual Studio Code since that is the de-Microsofted version ( which like most de-Googled things still has traces )
While Sublime Text is much faster than VSCodium … I can still feel the lag when dealing with >50 files in over >5 instances
And the console view is ancient, and an afterthought. The plugin ecosystem is extremely ‘meh’ and the entire aesthetic of the editor is just south of minimalist and over in the realm of cut-off-nose-to-spite-face which is sad to me, having to spend so much of my life in there…
Anyway, discovering this list and searching for developer popped up at least two promising options, and from a programmer perspective I will definitely report back. Right now the sheer massiveness of these codebases is breaking the entire idea of the IDE, and then you get into ‘AI’ ( rename pending ) alongside that and it is just not a comfortable situation anymore. Like that “ugly beard” stage between stubble and full.
I tried out both Sublime Text and VS Code but not VSCodium; I found the lighter, quicker choices such as helix were much more interesting and fast, plus easy to configure or customize. I continue to be a fan of XNEdit for quick editing.
As far as really powerful text editors, and in this case something that’s too large and cumbersome for an old system, take a look at Spacemacs.
It’s a blend of GNU Emacs and Neovim, somewhat similar to “Doom Emacs” but it changes the default key bindings to a space bar followed by mostly alphabet letters, making it much easier on the hands and fingers.
You can still use the vi keys or the traditional Emacs keys if you REALLY want, but the approach and the themes put an entirely different perspective on both vi and Emacs. With this method, providing you have a current generation system you can use it any way you want, very powerful, very flexible.
My only warning is that it’ll overwhelm an old computer (10+ years old).
I will add this to the list now as it also works with Linux! Amazing how many great options are available. 
